Opera Alley
An artist named Jesse stopped by my office once to show me his artwork because he was interested in getting some images printed in Edge City Magazine (which eventually became Anthem Monthly), a magazine my girlfriend and I published for several years in Eureka, California. I had already seen his work at a gallery in Arcata several months before, so I was anxious to print some of his pictures. He mentioned that he played guitar. I told him that I’m a crappy bass player who loves to jam. Our friendship was formed. Norman, Edge City’s radio columnist, was a great drummer who said he was interested in getting together too, so Opera Alley was born. My address where we first practiced was 519 Opera Alley, so we borrowed the name. We existed for most of the eight years I lived in Humboldt County. We actually played a party in King Salmon once where dancing women took off their shirts, but that was with our second drummer, Scott. Opera Alley also included a couple of other guitar players, Mark and Randal, whenever they wanted to join us. Sometimes young fans would sit in the alley downstairs from our jam space and applaud our rambling punk rock. This song is called “Ed Wood,” which are its only words.